Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Veteran Bluesman and Carolina Chocolate Drop join forces in DC show

Music Maker is pleased to announce the addition of several
upcoming tour dates for Boo Hanks and Dom Flemons, one of which will be at The
Hamilton in Washington, D.C. on August 19.The two blues artists plan to promote their new collaborative
album Buffalo Junction, which will be released
June 19.

Hanks, one of the most important ‘discoveries’ in recent
blues history, grew up sharecropping in Vance County, N.C., where he learned to
play guitar from his father and from listening to Blind Boy Fuller on a wind-up
gramophone. After partnering with Music Maker he went from being heard only in
his community to playing for thousands at shows and festivals across the South,
at the Lincoln Center and in Belgium, and opening for the Carolina Chocolate
Drops. Flemons, who won a Grammy in 2011 with the Drops, was at the Music Maker
office the day Hanks first arrived, and their friendship and collaborations
grew from that first jam session over the next six years.

Dom Flemons said of the
recording experience: "Boo Hanks is a treasure. His vocal and guitar
phrases are something so unique and forgotten in the modern world of folk and
blues.He an absolutely engaging
songster and it has been a pleasure to have played with him for several years
and to be a part of this album which will hopefully present his music to a much
wider audience.”

Hanks’ and Flemons’ new album Buffalo Junction, named for Hanks’ hometown in Virginia, features
upbeat, country blues that crosses generational lines. The albumhighlights Hanks on the guitar and vocals, while Flemons
plays a variety of traditional instruments such as the jug, harmonica, bones
and also sings backup vocals.

Music Maker president Tim Duffy said of the upcoming tour:
“Audiences will have a chance to enjoy this new collaboration in person through
these performances. They will see live the passing of the torch from Piedmont
Blues veteran Boo Hanks to an artist like Dom, who is poised to take the sound
into this new century.”

Hanks is a partner
artist of Music Maker, while Flemons is a Next Generation Artist. Through Next
Generation partnerships, MMRF fosters the continuation of Southern traditional
music among younger generations of musicians. Buffalo Junction is a collaborative album that does just that.